Graeme Grant

Historically, most retailers view returns as a plague on their business. Not only do you lose the sale, but you pay for the privilege of your customer returning the unwanted merchandise to you. The National Retail Federation’s 2015 annual survey of North America retailers found that $260 billion worth of merchandise was returned last year.…

Amazon.com is the most talked about — and feared — company in retail today. You can argue that its success is simply because of low prices, but the truth is consumers also shop Amazon more frequently because of the company's consumer-centric approach.

You may remember the scene in the movie "The Minority Report" when Tom Cruise's character enters a Gap store and is greeted by a hologram of a store associate who welcomes him back to the store and asks how his last purchase — assorted tank tops — worked out for him. When this movie was released in 2002, this personalized in-store experience seemed far into the future, but it's now almost upon us.

There are misconceptions about every industry, and within retail, there are plenty about email marketing. But if we're going to make any kind of progression in the industry, it's important to debunk these mistaken beliefs. Below are my deconstructions of the five most common myths surrounding email marketing today: